


you are more than the promise of the sea

by newamsterdam



Category: Free!
Genre: Between Seasons/Series, Blow Jobs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ensemble Cast, Family Issues, First Dates, First Kiss, First Time, Getting Together, Hand Jobs, Internal Monologue, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Miscommunication, Nightmares, POV Alternating, excessive metaphors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:57:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5073397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newamsterdam/pseuds/newamsterdam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haru wants Rin to be happy, and thinks it's that simple. Rin doesn't know how to explain all the ways in which it isn't.</p><p>(Set between S1 and Eternal Summer.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Haruka thinks a lot and reacts a little (the latter, especially, when it matters).

Sometimes it feels like he’s watching his life filtered through water—the sounds muted, the images blurred. It’s one of the reasons he likes _actually_ being underwater so much. At least, then, he knows that the distortions are genuine and not caused by some inherent disconnect he has with the world. 

Mostly, Haruka is content with that thought. 

But the brightest lights will still break through the water, and the most vivid colors are still visible beneath the sea. They’re an inconvenience, at best. Haruka has never said that he wanted bright lights and bold colors invading his peace. 

But Rin has never really cared about what Haruka has wanted, has he? Because at age eleven, he’s brighter and bolder than he has any right to be, bursting into Haruka’s life and upsetting his peace. His smiles, sharp and gleaming, are burned into Haruka’s memory whether he wants them to be or not. 

And then he’s gone, and the water goes quiet and dark once again.

\--

A long time ago, before Haruka could even conceive of meeting Rin, he’d spent most of his time with his mother. When they’d gone out into town, she’d reach for his hand and he’d shy away, uncomfortable with the feeling of her skin against his. She never stopped smiling, despite this—her smiles were small, distant things, barely-there quirks of her shell-pink lips. But she’d keep trying to reach for his hand, and he’d keep pulling away.

One day, she wore a lilac-colored dress. The day was slightly windy, and the soft fabric of her skirt billowed as she walked. Haruka was fascinated by the color, reached out to grab it before he could think better of it. His mother had paused, staring at him for a moment, and then her smile had burst bright and clear. 

“Just hold on, then,” she’d said. “Don’t get lost.”

She wore that dress often, after that. Haruka remembers vividly his own small hand clenched into the fabric, unwilling to let go even when he was being put to bed. His mother would reach out and gently detangle his fingers from her skirt, smoothing back his hair with her other hand. 

She always said she loved him as he finally let go, so he wouldn’t forget even when the lilac-colored fabric wasn’t clenched in his hand.

\--

His mother’s expressions were often so subtle that Haruka would chase their meaning, like pulling at tangled threads to find the ends of them. His grandmother was much easier to figure out—she was stern, always, but she’d always laugh strong and loud so that he could tell when she was joking. Mostly she was sage-like, imparting wisdom upon him that he could register as fact, unburdened by emotion.

But his mother had subtle smiles and frown lines that creased just barely when she was under stress. They were deeper, when his father would go away on business. But some days Haruka would come into the kitchen in the morning and find both of his parents sitting there. His father poured tea and his mother cooked breakfast, and as she put the plates out she would murmur to Haruka’s father that she was happy to have him home, and that she loved him.

Her words were always soft, a gentle reminder. Haruka’s father would look up at her, brow scrunched for a moment like he wasn’t expecting the words, no matter how often she repeated them. He never really responded verbally, but instead leaned down and kissed his wife on the cheek. 

His mother always smiled brighter, after that, and Haruka tucked the image away, not really considering it fully.

\--

When Haruka’s mother tucked him into bed, next, and pulled his fingers away from her skirt and smoothed back his hair and told him she loved him, he tilted his head to one side and considered all her actions like they were the pieces of a puzzle.

With her leaned towards him, he reached up and pressed his lips to her cheek, quickly. Immediately afterwards, he turned his face into his pillow and closed his eyes, but not before he saw the smile bursting onto his mother’s face, surprised but utterly joyful.

\--

He doesn’t want her to move to Tokyo, with his father. But for some reason it’s easy to tell her to go.

He sulks for weeks. Then, Haruka’s grandmother finds an old lilac-colored dress in a box of old clothes. They spend the next few days cutting up the fabric, re-fashioning it into a set of pillowcases. 

\--

Rin’s emotions should be obvious, because he’s the most expressive person that Haruka has ever met. His voice is too loud and his smiles are too sharp and he doesn’t care that Haruka scowls when he throws his arm across his shoulders. Everything about Rin is exaggerated, and therefore he should be easy to figure out. 

But he isn’t.

He seems happy to go to Australia even though it means leaving Haruka—and Makoto and Nagisa and his sister and his mother—behind. Haruka isn’t happy, but he purses his lips and lets Rin go. He’s never been good at telling people to stay.

But because he lets Rin go, Rin should be happy, shouldn’t he? And yet, that winter, his eyes are shadowed and his smiles are hollow and when he starts to cry after their race, Haruka doesn’t know what to do. 

Haruka is left with the feeling that he’s done something fundamentally wrong, but isn’t sure what that is. He settles on the only thing that makes sense. He gives up swimming, but that doesn’t bring Rin back. 

\--

Haru spends a lot of time with his head under the water, the world around him muted and distorted and distant because he chooses to keep it that way.

\--

It’s Makoto and Nagisa and Rei who pull him out, eventually. It’s the relay that cuts through the water and forces him to acknowledge it. And it’s Rin, skirting around the edges of his vision, pushing and pulling at him, who brings back something Haruka gave up willingly, but never stopped missing.

Rin is back, but he doesn’t smile anymore. And Haru can’t stand it, not when he’s laying himself bare just for the chance to see him again.

\--

His hand slaps the wall with enough force to smart, but Haru barely feels it as Makoto pulls him up and out of the pool. He hears Nagisa yelling, his voice rising and rising in pitch, and the din of the tournament around them. He hears wet feet against the floor, and then—and then Rin’s arms are around him, tight and strong. He feels utterly unlike the child who’d draped himself all over Haru without a care. This Rin holds on as if he has to, as if he’s utterly unwilling to let Haru go. 

He finds he doesn’t mind that, too much. He breathes out slowly, and smiles.

Rin smiles, too, wide and sincere and _beautiful_. He laughs with all of them, not just Haru, and then Rei is joining them with his strange mix of smugness and sheepishness, and Gou is snapping pictures and shaking with excitement. 

Somehow, eventually, they get herded back into the locker room. There’s excitement and chatter all around them, but Haru watches Rin, and wonders. Rin’s hands are shaking as he opens his locker and collects himself. When the others have dispersed, Rin is still there, lips pursed tightly together and eyes closed. His hands clench, and his lips move, as if he’s murmuring something to himself. Haru isn’t close enough to hear, if Rin’s even speaking aloud. 

But he doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want a Rin who’s tense and tight with anger and uncertainty. He wants Rin smiling and bright and vivid—the Rin he screamed for, chased after, fought for. 

Haru has never felt shy—not really. He expects his intentions and desires to be plain to others, acts on what he wants without a second thought. (But he’s never asked anyone to stay, especially not when he can feel them already pulling away.)

Now Rin is pulling his fingers through his hair, breathing in and out slowly and harshly. Haru takes two steps towards him. 

“Rin.”

And Rin looks up, registers Haru’s presence and takes an involuntary step backwards. Then he’s laughing—harsh but lighter, still, somehow—his eyes tracking every line of Haru in front of him. 

“You’re still here,” he says, eventually. “Better go find our—your—the team, right? You’re gonna get an earful, for sure.” 

“So will you.”

“Yeah, I know. Mikoshiba’s gonna kick my ass.” Rin snorts, crosses his arms over his chest. Maybe to anyone else his stance would look confident, but all Haru can see is someone desperately trying to keep themselves together. For a few brief moments, during the relay and after, Rin had burst out of himself, letting his laughter and nervous joy bleed out into those around him. He was unguarded, and unrestrained. But now he’s coiled himself back up, and he’s blocking Haru out again. 

“Don’t worry.” 

“Who’s worried? If they kick me off, they kick me off. I don’t _care_ —”

And this time Haru is the one who scoffs, because if he knows anything with absolute certainty, it is that Rin cares. He cares so much it colors the entire world around him, pulling people towards him whether he intends it to or not. He cares and it’s beautiful, because when he smiles at Haru—when he smiles at Haru, Haru thinks, _This person cares so much and entirely, and he cares about me_. 

Haru is unwilling to lose that feeling again. He can’t swim a relay with Rin every time he’s unhappy, every time the smile fades from his face. (He supposes they could just keep swimming together, forever, and that might do the trick. But even he can see the practical holes in that plan.) 

So instead Haru acts on instinct. He reaches out and grabs Rin’s shoulder, pulling him closer. He leans towards him and kisses his cheek, a soft press of his lips that leaves him with the taste of chlorine. Rin’s skin is warm, and the instant Haru lets go of him he stumbles back, eyes wide. Before he can open his mouth, or react in any way, his lips are pulling away from his teeth and he’s smiling, an involuntary laugh gurgling up from his throat. 

Haru wants to commit it to memory—the warm blush across Rin’s cheeks, the way his teeth pull at his lower lip as he tries and fails to bite away the smile, the frantic movement of his eyelashes as he blinks repeatedly. 

“Haru,” he breathes out. And then, louder, “What?”

He kisses Rin’s cheek again, because he wants to, because he needs to. It’s not a conscious thought, yet, but he knows he’ll do it as often as it takes to keep that smile in place.

(It’s not a bad trade off, really, because Rin is bright and vivid before him, and Haru feels like he’s finally breached the surface.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic will hopefully be updated with relative speed, and be more plot-oriented beginning next chapter. It's set entirely between seasons, so we had to lay out the baggage of S1 before things can really get going.
> 
> I'd love to know what you thought, always. You can also come hang out with me on tumblr: [newamsterdame](http://newamsterdame.tumblr.com/).


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are many Matsuokas, and one in particular who can't get it together.

He’s running, again. It’s second nature, by now—confronted with a problem he cannot begin to solve, he takes off in the opposite direction. It works, for the most part. When the wind blows his hair back and his lungs scream for air, his mind goes blissfully blank and he focuses on physical sensation rather than conscious thought. His feet hit the sidewalk, step by step. The wind blows, cold against his flushed skin. His fingers clench, nails digging into his palms. 

It’s when he stops to gasp for air that he feels his cellphone vibrate in his pocket. He glances at the screen and sees the same list of messages that’s been accumulating all day. 

_Gou (17:15): Today was amazing!! I always want to see you swimming like that!_  
_Gou (18:06): Even though we got disqualified, we’re all going out for dinner! You should come too!_  
_Gou (20:16): Onii-chan?_  
_Gou (20:47): You should come home._

He glances at the last message, then up at the house he’d stopped in front of. It’s nondescript, well-kept. He has the keys in his pocket, could knock and be let in. Instead, he takes a deep breath and responds, for the first time in months, to one of his sister’s text messages. 

_I’m home._

\--

He’s high off of the adrenaline of victory, of happiness, of acceptance. His hands are shaking as he makes it into the locker room. But the further away he gets from that moment, the more reality begins to set in. What did he just _do_? 

Don’t panic, he thinks to himself. Don’t second guess this. They wanted you there, they came after you. Haru wanted you there, he _smiled_ at you. 

And then Haru kisses him. His joy and his panic, already at war with each other, freeze in place. All he can think about is the feeling of Haru’s lips, and how he wants to kiss him back, for real. 

He’s always wanted Haru’s attention for himself, after all. 

But instead he steps back, and laughs nervously, and looks at Haru looking at him, impassive as ever. He can’t figure out what Haru wants from him, looking at him like that right after he’d just kissed him. 

So he does what always been easy—he turns on his heel, mumbles out an excuse. 

“I should—the bus is probably leaving, soon.” 

He walks out of the locker room, façade of uncaring firmly in place. But he knows, and Haru probably knows, too, that he’s actually running.

\--

The Matsuoka house hasn’t changed much, since Rin was a child. During the weeks he’d visit from Australia, he’d found that fact comforting. The first break back, he’d bounced around the house, exclaiming at how one rug had been moved or that his clothes still smelled freshly-laundered. Even then, the nervousness was a constant presence. He catalogued every difference and similarity, as though when he added them all up he’d find his place here hidden in the sum. 

Tonight the house is quiet, but warm. He’s been back more than a handful of times since he enrolled at Samezuka, but that had mostly been for appearances’ sake. Lately, he hasn’t been back at all. 

But despite his distance, Gou is still there to greet him. She wraps her arms around him and squeezes tightly, and he ruffles her hair and offers her a crooked smile in response. Her whole face lights up, and he remembers how many apologies he owes her.

His mother makes her way out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on the hem of her shirt. The years have been kinder to her that one would expect for someone widowed so young—her hair is still vibrantly red, thick and long. When it had first been just the three of them, she used to grab Gou in one arm and Rin in the other, and tell them they were three of a kind. Red hair and bright smiles, despite the world. 

He doesn’t know what to say to her. He doesn’t know what the breaking point will be, at what moment she’ll look at him and stop seeing the smiling child he was and start noticing the fractured person he’s become. 

Rin stares down at his socked feet, shoes already left in the doorway.

“I’m home,” he croaks. 

It’s only a moment before her thin arms are around him, her head against his shoulder.

“Welcome home.”

\--

“Gou said you had a good day,” his mother mentions, later, when the three of them are sitting at the kitchen table and Rin has a plate of food in front of him.

He snorts, moving rice around with no intention of eating it. “Sure,” he mutters, “if losing one race and getting disqualified from another counts as ‘good.’”

Gou kicks him lightly, under the table. “That’s not what I meant. I have _pictures_ , you know.”

Rin sighs, sets down his utensils. He’s still looking down at the table and not at the two of them when he says, “Yeah. It was good.”

He hears the smile in his mother’s voice, now. “I’m glad. It sounds like you needed this.”

The words take him aback. Rin glances up, but sees no trace of irony in his mother’s expression. (Just aspects of his own face and Gou’s—his sharply-angled features, her wide eyes, the creamy skin they both share.) She has her hands folded in front of her, smile just a shade sharp. 

He looks behind him, into the living room, where an old oak cabinet holds all of the awards he’s accumulated over the years. He’s come to hate that cabinet, hates that he can’t fill it, hates that there is going to be a void not just for the gold medal he feels so far away from but also for the awards he should’ve won in Australia, and since he’s been home. 

His mother reaches across the table and grabs his hand, recalling his attention.

“Let’s get some of the photos printed,” she says. “I like seeing you look so happy.”

She wants a photo of a race that didn’t come with a trophy, Rin thinks disjointedly. He opens his mouth to respond and all that comes out is a near-hysterical laugh.

“Why would you want something like that?”

His mother shakes her head, lips thin like she’s holding back a laugh. 

“Because we do,” Gou interjects, as if that settles it. “I’ll print one for Haruka-senpai, too! Did you know he has a whole photo album from the old swim club? The rest of the team’ll want them, too, I bet.” 

He’s blushing before he knows it, and his mother and Gou are chattering excitedly about which one they liked best. Rin can remember, distantly, a time when the chatter would be all three of them, and he didn’t feel like there was a wall of glass separating him from everyone he cares most about. (He can see everything, but can’t take part, and that’s the worst part.)

“Rin,” his mother says, sternly, a moment later. “Finish your dinner.”

It’s such a normal sentiment he wants to cry. He doesn’t, though, just shovels mouthfuls into his mouth until he stops thinking about the action and starts tasting the food.

All of it—the home-cooked meal and Gou’s laughter and his mother’s gentle cadence and the talk of photos of four hours ago and four years ago—gives him courage. 

\--

Rin wants—he wants a lot of things. A gold medal and his father back and a cabinet full of trophies and the ability to say “I’m sorry, I can’t do this” without the world falling apart around him. (He wants to know why Haru kissed him, and if that means what he thinks it means. He wants to be able to tell Haru that he _wants_ him, too.)

Rin needs—he’s not quite sure what he needs. He’s always conflated the two, up until now. 

\--

“It’s late,” Haru says, when he opens the door. He’s rubbing at his eyes, like he’d already fallen asleep. He’s wearing a plain white t-shirt, and his eyes are luminous in the dark.

“Yeah,” Rin agrees. He’d run here, was still breathing heavily until the moment he started pounding on the door. Now, it’s easy to look Haru in the eye, somehow, even though lately his habit’s been to look over people’s heads or down at his own feet. 

The silence sits stale between them for a long moment. Then Haru shrugs almost imperceptibly and moves back into his house, leaving the door open behind him. Rin stares at the open door—the open invitation—for another long moment.

He gathers his courage and follows Haru into the house.

\--

They sit together in Haru’s living room. Rin sprawls, back against the wall. Haru sits off to one side, regarding him silently. He’s waiting, Rin realizes, for him to say why he’s here. 

He clears his throat awkwardly, glares when he realizes how stupid he’s being. 

“Did you know what you were doing, today?” Rin asks. “Today, after the race, when you…”

“When I kissed you.” Haru’s words are as direct and economical as ever. 

“When you kissed me,” Rin repeats. Saying the words out loud pulls the memory out of the dreamscape he’s pushed it into, and back into reality. That _happened_.

“Why would I not know what I was doing?” Haru asks, head tilted to one side. Rin can’t fathom how some people view Haru as passive or gentle—he’s always looked like a predator to Rin, considering the world around him as if deciding whether it’s worth his time and effort, or not. 

(Rin wants to be worth the effort. Wants it so badly it burns through him, leaves him breathless.)

“Because!” Rin says, voice finally rising beyond its carefully-unaffected tone. “Because—you _kissed_ me.”

Haru blinks. “Yes. I know.”

Damn, why is he so into this guy, again? Every conversation’s like pulling teeth unless Rin not only takes the lead, but also drags Haru along with him by force.

“And you know what that means,” Rin stresses, voice low and almost frantic. 

“It made you smile.” And then—right there—a smile fleets across Haru’s own lips, like he’s proud of himself. It’s a subtle gesture, but one Rin wants to see again and again, as many times as he can. 

“Haru…” He clenches his hands at his sides, evens his breathing and lifts his chin. “You know I’m—I’ve been an asshole, right? You all did so _much_ for me today and I did nothing to earn that.”

He’s frowning now, like he’s growing impatient. “Whatever happened, you shouldn’t quit. I didn’t want you to. You don’t have to earn what friends do for you.” 

Haru speaks slowly, as though he’s coming to this realization even as he says the words. Rin finds himself wondering what Haru’s life has been like for the past few years, why he hadn’t risen to become Japan’s rising young star in the years Rin was gone. Now he feels like he understands, just a little. 

Rin runs a hand through his hair, tugging at it irritably. “Yeah, I _get_ that. And I’m grateful, you know. I meant that. But that’s not—that was all of us. What about you, and me?” 

He could die, from how clichéd it sounds. But Haru’s the one who started this, isn’t he?

“I wanted to,” Haru says, his voice level and shameless, even as a soft pink blush touches his cheeks. 

Rin had thought, sometime ago, that all he needed was admiration, and acceptance. Someone who would come and smooth out his rough edges and take whatever scrapes and bruises they got in the process. Haru will never be like that—he’s not selfless in the way Rin would have imagined, in his abstract dreaming. But that’s more of a relief than a disappointment. 

He still has no idea what he needs, but he’s sure of what he wants.

Rin breathes out, unclenches his hands. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay?” Haru asks. He has only a second to blink in surprise before Rin is right next to him, fingers gently brushing against Haru’s cheek. Haru doesn’t move away.

Rin leans in and brings their mouths together, closes his eyes and focuses on the sensation. It’s like running in that his mind goes utterly blank, the physical sensations filling him up so that he doesn’t have to think. Haru makes a soft sound against him, clutching at his shirt with both hands as Rin feels him move, trying to better the angle between them. 

“That’s how you give someone a first kiss,” Rin says triumphantly, even though he’s out of breath when they shift apart. 

Haru shakes his head, but then reaches over and traces the smile on Rin’s lips with his fingers. Rin jolts, the sensation more intimate than the earlier kiss, and laughs when Haru moves away again. 

Haru smiles at him quietly, in return. And as much as Rin wants that smile, there’s a voice in the back of his mind screaming at him to run away before he takes this and crashes it against the rocks, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who read/commented/liked the last chapter-- it's my first time writing these characters, so your feedback is so so valuable to me. Again, please let me know what you think of this chapter if you feel so inclined, or drop me a line on [tumblr](http://newamsterdame.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I hope you continue to enjoy the story! Next time: "now that we've kissed repeatedly we can accept that we like each other and move on, right?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are two dates, and something more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be advised that this chapter earns the rating.

He’s never been good at controlling his impulses. Haru strips at the sight of pools, immerses himself in them and has to be dragged away from the soothing feeling of water against his skin. He’s never thought to deny himself that.

At first, kissing Rin is for the reaction—the smile, the calmness and warmth that radiate from deep inside of him. But the second time—the second time Haru has enough presence of mind to gauge his own reactions, and realizes this is another sensation he never wants to be away from.

He doesn’t bother trying to deny himself—he doesn’t even want to.

\--

It’s freeing, Haru thinks absently. The first joint practice hosted by Iwatobi holds nothing of the embarrassment or tension of the one at Samezuka. With the season over for most of them, the swimmers spend a few hours in the pool exchanging friendly taunts and dunking one another under the water. Mikoshiba calls them to task once or twice, but for the most part the atmosphere is clean and relaxed. Haru floats on his back at one end of the pool, letting the water flow around him and the sound of voices drift over him. 

(And if he looks, at those moments when he and Rin aren’t racing each other, and sees Rin smiling as he and Nitori stretch out, or when he ruffles Nagisa’s hair, or when he and Makoto stand side by side, surveying the others… well, no one has to know that seeing Rin integrating back into his world lights a low fire in Haru, and fills him with a deep contentment.)

It’s after, when most of the others have wandered off, towards home, that Haru sees Rin hanging back at the gate of the school. He looks up to see Haru and grins crookedly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

“Hey,” he says, and Haru can’t help but see him in triplicate in that moment. There is the twelve-year-old Rin who’d hang all over him with his fanged, ambitious smile and bright eyes. There is the Rin from a week ago, open and vulnerable as he cried over Haru and then equally so when he’d opened his mouth against their kiss and let out soft noises that Haru has been imagining ever since. And then, the Rin from earlier today—confident in his stance and the roll of his eyes, chest bare and gleaming with water as he got out of the pool. 

Oh, Haru realizes. He wants to keep all of them, each of them. 

“Haru?” Rin’s waiting for a response.

He looks up and nods, raises his brows questioningly. 

“I was saying. After… everything… we should go out, somewhere.” Rin’s looking at him almost defiantly, eyes narrowed. 

Haru stares at him impassively, waiting for the rest.

“You know, just the two of us,” Rin continues, slightly flustered. He gestures between them. 

Haru waits.

“On a _date_ ,” Rin gets out. “I’m asking you out on a date, Haru!” 

He blinks. “I know.” 

“You _know_?” Rin sounds affronted. “What kind of answer is that?”

Before Rin can get too worked up, Haru reaches for his hand. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Rin’s eyes go wide, and then narrow again. As if he’s been challenged. “Fine—tomorrow.” 

They walk together to the train station, Rin coming up with increasingly over-the-top suggestions that Haru just nods along to. Talking to Rin, being around Rin, always takes more effort than with other people. Rin is not content to just let Haru be at rest—he’s constantly throwing pebbles against the water, waiting for the rippling effects. 

“You know what?” Rin says, exasperated. “Just—meet me here, tomorrow! I’ll take care of everything.”

He’s a little bit like how he used to be, in the way he lifts his chin and sounds imperious. But he hasn’t let go of Haru’s hand, and doesn’t until his train arrives.

\--

The next day, Rin is waiting for him at the station. He’s leaning against a pillar, phone in his hands as he thumbs through something—messages, a webpage?—and taps his foot against the pavement. For a moment, Haru has trouble reconciling the sight of him—it’s been awhile, since he’s seen Rin out of his uniform or swimming gear. Here he is, now, with no other reason to be except that Haru is here, too.

Rin looks up and sees him, and his teeth catch on his lower lip when he bites down on a smile. He’s wearing black jeans that made his legs look impossibly long, a loose white shirt that drapes low at the neckline. The bright red of his sneakers and the charm on a chord around his neck reaffirm what Haru has always known—Matsuoka Rin doesn’t know the meaning of the word “subtle,” even if he doesn’t wear three different shades of neon at a time, anymore. 

“You made it,” Rin says, edging towards him. He holds up two slips of paper in one hand—movie tickets. “C’mon, c’mon, we’re gonna be late.”

Haru doesn’t much care for being manhandled, but Rin grabbing at his wrist and tugging him along isn’t unbearable. He thinks he may even like it, the tangible reminder of Rin’s presence and the connection between them.

(The connection had been like fire, when they kissed, bright and alive. Every moment since, Haru’s missed it.)

Rin ushers him into the movie theater, insists on paying for concessions. When they’re seated—precisely in the middle of the theater, with the best view of the screen—Rin fidgets constantly, smoothing down his shirt and tugging at his necklace, flicking his hair out of his eyes.

It takes Haru a moment, to realize what he’s doing.

“You look fine,” he mutters, reaching for Rin’s hand and holding it still. 

Rin looks nothing short of crestfallen for all of five seconds before he tosses his head, scoffing. 

“Obviously,” he drawls. “And more than fine.”

Haru considers, again. Rin is obviously very conscious of everything that’s gone into this—from the movie tickets, bought ahead of time, to his outfit. Haru glances down at himself—simply cut clothes, the cool colors he always favors—and shrugs internally. He hadn’t much thought about what he was going to wear, today. 

“The theater’s dark, anyway,” Haru says, as though that will salvage the moment. 

“That’s not the point, shut up,” Rin says, turning away for a moment. “I don’t even care.”

His voice trails off as the theater does, in fact, go dark. It’s when the movie begins that Haru realizes just how much Rin’s thought about this—because from start to finish, the screen is overtaken with beautifully-rendered scenes of water, perfect and magical. Haru’s entranced, for most of it, can’t tear his eyes away from the screen and wishes, irrationally, that he could dive through the perfectly-drawn water just like the characters.

It’s about an hour in when he realizes, when he _sees_ Rin stiffen beside him whenever the main characters call each other by name. 

“ _Sousuke_!”

Now, all of Haru’s attention is on Rin, the way he’s gnawing on his lip and clenching and unclenching his hands. Rin wears his tension so obviously, hoards it all like lightning caught in a bottle, volatile and angry. 

Haru sighs to himself, then reaches over and drapes his arm over Rin’s shoulders, his fingers gently brushing against Rin’s arm. Rin stiffens, again, for a moment, and then relaxes into Haru’s touch gradually.

By the time Rin sighs and leans fully against him, Haru’s already gone back to focusing on the movie. 

\--

There are moments when Haru pulls his attention away from the screen and sees Rin, really _sees_ him. He chuckles at quiet moments and shakes his head at the characters’ unfortunate decisions. By the end of the movie, when their bond is sealed with a kiss, Rin’s eyes are shining. He’s not crying, Haru knows immediately, but it’s almost like the water is held in his eyes, making them gleam with emotion. 

\--

Haru knows, at least logically, that it often seems like he doesn’t care. But he’s always turned inwards, and can never reach out and pull people in the way they always seem to be able to do for him. 

With Makoto it’s easy—he fills the gaps in their conversations and reads Haru’s expressions and silences. He knows when to ask if Haru is alright and when to let things lie. Haru can sometimes—often, maybe—reciprocate, knows when Makoto is hiding things and can level him with a stare that has Makoto sharing all. 

But with Rin… that doesn’t work, with Rin. His smiles are like shattered glass, now, and Haru knows better than anyone that brokenness isn’t an absolute state. Something shattered, especially a smile, can cut and draw blood and break even more. He can’t be the source of that, not again. 

But he isn’t like Nagisa or Makoto, or Rin himself. He can’t draw people out in the way. But when he feels Rin against him, he wants nothing more than to smooth away his sharp edges, wishes he knew how.

\--

They’re at the station, again, and Rin is running his hands through his hair and looking at Haru expectantly. 

“So—how was it?” He looks nervous. Like he’s teetering on the edge of something, waiting to be pushed over or pulled back.

“What, the movie?” Haru considers. “We should have a world covered in water, too.”

“Way to miss the point entirely.” Rin rolls his eyes, tosses his head. “That’s not what I meant. The date—perfect, right?”

Nothing is perfect, Haru thinks. Every year winter comes around and swimming ends. Whether you show someone you love them or not, they’ll leave. Even slipping beneath the water and drowning out the noise leaves you with something hollow, distinctly _im_ perfect. 

“Not really,” Haru says, and again, like earlier, Rin’s expression crumples. 

It’s not that he doesn’t understand that this is important to Rin; he just doesn’t understand why that’s the case.

But Haru’s never been good at impulse control, and he’s only found a few surefire ways of getting what he wants from Rin. So he closes in and kisses Rin like he’s been wanting to all day, all week, ever since the last time. At first Rin’s mouth is a hard line, lips pressed closed defiantly. But then he softens, and leans in. Rin opens his mouth and makes one of those noises again, high-pitched and at odds with the usual timbre of his voice. Haru places one hand against Rin’s hip, the other on the small of his back. For all his sharp angles and biting words, this part of Rin is smooth and caressing, his fingers gentle in Haru’s hair, against the back of his neck. 

Ocean waves can smooth broken glass, can’t they? Make it something beautiful again.

“If you’re kissing me just to shut me up, I swear I’ll—”

Haru kisses him again, just to prove the point.

“ _Haru_!” Rin’s blushing, face lit up like a sunset, and he’s glaring in response to Haru’s barely-there smirk. “What the hell, we’re in public!”

He’s not really sure how else to say that he wants Rin, wants to be with him, wants to make sure he won’t go away again. He settles for tugging at the hem of Rin’s shirt, and muttering, “It doesn’t have to be perfect.” 

“Oh,” Rin says dumbly, after a moment. His mouth is open, like he’s had a revelation. 

\--

_Rin (23:18): are you even awake right now?_  
_Rin (23:19): i can never sleep, anymore_  
_Rin (23:22): come over. we can go swimming._

\--

It’s been a few weeks, since the first date. Even longer, since the relay. And now it’s midnight, and Haru is floating on his back in Samezuka’s pool as moonlight filters in from above, Rin idly treading water beside him. 

“Let’s race again,” Rin is saying, “I’ll beat you, this time.” 

Haru isn’t keeping count, but if he was, he’d tell Rin that he’s won four times out of seven, and he has no interest in going again, at the moment. Instead, he’s enjoying his vantage point, eyeing the spot where Rin’s hipbones meet the line of his suit. 

Sometimes, right before they race, Rin looks like Haru like he could swallow him whole. In this moment, Haru thinks he understands the sentiment. 

He drifts over to Rin, flips in the water to right himself before he ghosts his fingers along the line of Rin’s hip. Rin startles, shivering, and Haru repeats the motion, just to get the reaction again. 

“What’re you doing,” Rin mutters, pushing Haru away. He seems sharper, in the moonlight, the shadows catching every angle of his face. 

Haru comes in close again, rests his chin against Rin’s shoulder and enjoys, for a moment, the unprecedented proximity—their bare chests against each other, heartbeats almost audible in the echoing space of the deserted natatorium. Rin shudders, and for a moment Haru thinks he’ll be shoved away again. But then Rin’s hands are on his hips, vicelike. Then Rin’s mouth is on his, equally aggressive, and Haru can feel the sharp press of Rin’s teeth against his lips. 

It’s intoxicating, and Haru’s almost proud of himself for pulling all of Rin’s aggression towards himself, helping him put it to good purpose. 

\--

“Have you—” Rin pants, as they stumble into the locker room. “Done this—” He grabs at Haru’s arms, pulling him closer. “—before?”

Haru’s too busy exploring the expanse of Rin’s back, the many lines of his muscled chest, to pay much attention to his words. But he has enough presence of mind to shake his head.

“Oh,” Rin says, voice filled with a strange sort of wonder, for a moment. “Me neither.”

Haru doesn’t think too long on that, either, because his poorly-trained control is frayed enough. He kisses Rin again—and it’s like swimming in that he never tires of it, never wants to let go of the sensation. Rin grunts as his back hits the wall, and then he’s tugging at Haru’s jammers, stripping them off his legs when Haru takes a step forward. For a moment all Haru can hear is their labored breathing, and then Rin reaches down and takes Haru’s cock in hand, tugging at it without hesitation.

His entire mind goes blank for a moment, and then he’s aware of Rin’s breathing near his ear, his voice murmuring, “Alright?” like he’s asking for Haru’s permission. 

Haru nods, face against Rin’s neck, and then he’s pulling at Rin’s legskins because he wants this, too, wants Rin to feel as out of breath and senseless as Haru does. He only manages to push them halfway down Rin’s legs before he gets distracted, running his hands down Rin’s bare legs almost reverently.

Rin laughs involuntarily, shuddering at the touch. 

“You’re smooth,” Haru says without thinking.

“I’m a _swimmer_ ,” Rin growls, as if that explains everything. “Fuck—”

Haru’s taking him in hand, now, tugging experimentally. He tries to recreate what Rin’s doing for him, what he’s done for himself. It takes long moments, both of them awkward in their movements, but then it’s like how they swim together—there’s a rhythm, a wave they both ride as they push each other forward. The challenge hangs in the air, unspoken. 

“Rin,” Haru says, panting, “Rin, I want to try something.”

“What?” Rin’s voice is heavy, intoxicated. “Shit—do what you want, just do that again—”

So Haru pulls Rin away from the wall and turns them around, presses up against Rin’s back and tucks his chin over Rin’s shoulder before reaching around him to take Rin in hand again. Rin grumbles, hands fluttering now that he can’t reciprocate. But Haru just rocks against him, kisses along his jawline as his cock presses against Rin’s ass. Rin hisses, his entire body reacting to each particularly hard tug. And Haru can’t get enough of it, the reactions that shift subtly with each new way he touches Rin. 

“Harder,” Rin hisses, after a few moments. “Haru— _harder_.” 

And Haru can’t do anything but acquiesce, tightens his grip and feels like he’s about to burst out of his skin when Rin moans outright. His legs shake a bit, but Haru wraps his arm around Rin’s waist and holds him steady. They are closer than they’ve ever been, and Rin isn’t sharply guarded—he’s open and trembling and an increasingly incomprehensible stream of curses and moans is tumbling out of him. 

Rin tenses just before he comes, his entire body going taut and then releasing as Haru feels dampness against his palm. It startles him enough for him to release his hold on Rin, who sinks down to his knees, breathing heavily. 

“Fuck, that was…” Rin’s voice is drifting in and out, like waves coming in against the shore. He turns his head and looks at Haru with the same look in his eyes—reflective like water, burning with emotion. Haru shudders, now, when Rin fixes him with a predatory look. “Give me a moment,” Rin says.

Haru nods, patient.

And then Rin’s on his feet, again, and pushing Haru towards one of the benches in the locker room. Haru sits down without complaint, because now he can look at Rin head on, and he’s too busy looking at Rin’s eyes and flushed skin to quite register what he’s doing before— _oh_.

Rin is on his knees in front of him, kissing his way up Haru’s thighs. Haru’s hands clench into fists as he tries to hold back his reaction, but when Rin’s lips touch his cock he lets out a low and desperate gasp. Rin grins, all teeth, and then he leans forward and whispers, conspiratorially, “This might suck—I’ve never done it before.”

But Haru has no complaints, because Rin’s mouth is wet and warm and his teeth just-barely smart when they make contact and soon enough Haru can’t even differentiate the sensations, just lets them all flow together as his eyes close and his head tips back and he breathes in short, shallow gasps. Rin braces his hands against Haru’s knees, his nails sharp against Haru’s skin. Haru’s never been so on edge before, has long since learned how to get himself off quickly and efficiently, but Rin teases it out, makes sure Haru is a mess before he finally comes with a soundless exhale.

“ _Rin_.” 

Their breaths echo off the walls here, too. When Haru can think, again, Rin is sitting beside him on the bench and leaning his head against Haru’s shoulder. He’s still half in his legskins, and Haru is naked and there’s come on his hand, and the two of them probably look ridiculous. But he can feel Rin’s heartbeat, and his breaths, and see the redness of his skin and his hair and the satisfaction in his smile.

He wants to keep Rin this close. But there’s a voice echoing in his head, a barely-there worry—he wants Rin, whole and entire. And that’s too much of a weight to put on anyone. 

“We’ve gotta go,” Rin is muttering, struggling to his feet. “Someone’s going to catch us, and I’m not putting it past Mikoshiba to kick me off the team for something like this.” 

The world around him is like a current, free-flowing, when all Haru wants is to stand still in this moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: Haru is seriously thirsty. 
> 
> Again, thanks so much for the comments on the last chapter! I hope you'll enjoy this one, as well, since it ended up being about one and a half times as long as I intended!
> 
> The movie Rin and Haru went to go see is [Ponyo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponyo), which came out in 2008. According to some timelines, that fits, but not with others, so if that doesn't mesh with your personal headcanon just pretend it's a special showing. 
> 
> Also it's been about three million months since I wrote anything nsfw so hopefully this isn't... terrible... 
> 
> Feel free to let me know how I'm doing here or [tumblr](http://newamsterdame.tumblr.com). See you next week for another chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are nightmares, cuddling, and complications.

Rin dreams of the funeral so often, he’s not sure what’s memory and what isn’t, anymore. He can distinctly feel Gou’s hand in his, clammy and small. She’d been wide-eyed, confused, crying as a reaction to their mother’s tears. (Even now, Rin’s not sure how much she understood, at the time. He’s never asked, because dredging up those memories in his waking hours is more than he can deal with.)

He remembers the procession, the long walk. There were so many, that day—it wasn’t just his father who’d died, but dozens of men out at sea. He remembers seeing other mourners and realizing he wasn’t alone in his grief, had spent the next few hours feeling sick that others’ sadness had been comforting to him. 

They hadn’t gone home, in the end, but to his grandmother’s house instead. She’d seemed resigned, through the entire thing. It was as if she’d known she’d lose her son to the water, one way or another. Rin had never seen her old, tiny house so full of people, before. He didn’t recognize many of them. He sat on the ground on one side of his mother, Gou on the other. Mourners came through to pay their respects, smiling at him as if that would ease the clenching sensation in his heart.

“These are Matsuoka-kun’s children?” One had asked, head tilted curiously. “They look just like you, don’t they? Such pretty hair.”

Rin wasn’t sure why this man was speaking as if he wasn’t in the room. His mother had looked up, at that. Her eyes, which had been glassy and dull all day, were suddenly sharp and almost angry.

“That’s right,” she said, chin lifted. One of her hands was around Gou’s thin shoulders, the other smoothing down Rin’s hair. 

The mourner wandered away, replaced by others soon after. 

“Toriachi-kun never made it to the Olympics,” one said sadly. It was after she’d turned away from them that Rin heard her continue, “What did he really leave behind, in this world?”

He remembers Asahi arriving, with his father. Sometimes, in his dreams, Sousuke is there, even though Rin knows that couldn’t be the case. He remembers hugging Gou as they’d both cried, but that hadn’t happened precisely on the day of the funeral—it was before, after, maybe both. 

“You have your father’s smile,” his grandmother had told him, tracing it on his lips one day, months later, when smiling had finally become easy again. 

Rin had taken that reassurance and clung to it. He didn’t have his father’s dark hair, or maybe anything else of him. But he had a sharp smile and loved to swim—maybe, in that, he could find his father again. 

But then he’d begun to lose those things, too. The water closes in over him, and it’s easier to swim down than to fight through to the surface.

\--

“You should call your friends, Rin,” his mother says, after he returns from Australia. “Gou, you have Sousuke-kun’s number, don’t you?”

The water floods inside of him, choking him and stealing his breath. He clenches his hands, stiffens. 

What could he possibly say? _Sorry I stopped writing, I just didn’t want you to know I’d failed, and now I know I’ve failed more by not saying anything at all_.

“Rin?” His mother asks, concerned. 

“I’m going for a run.”

Three days later, he moves into the Samezuka dorms, and thinks he can leave his old failings behind forever—as long as he stays away from swimming, and anyone who knew what he used to be. 

\--

Rin wakes up feeling dull and muted, unsure of where he is. The world is dark, and he vaguely registers that he’s not in his dorms or his mother’s house. He jolts, mildly panicked, until he notices Haru standing in the doorway.

“What’s going on?” Rin says fuzzily, around a yawn.

“You fell asleep.” Haru always speaks as if he’s stating the obvious, which perhaps he is. “Everyone went home.”

Rin stretches his arms over his head, remembering. The Iwatobi team had invited him over for dinner and board games, played in Haru’s living room. He’s not quite sure when he dozed off—he’d been sitting next to Haru, feeling self-conscious, scanning everyone’s reactions for a sign that he shouldn’t be here.

But Haru had put a hand reassuringly on his knee, and Rin had basked in the contact and leaned against him until nothing else quite mattered.

“Sorry,” Rin mutters, covering another yawn with the back of his hand. 

He wonders what the others thought—do they know, what’s going on between Haru and Rin? Everything had seemed normal, but the team’s dynamic is still so new to him that maybe he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Makoto is now quietly assured, less fragile than he’d seemed as a child. Nagisa is as effusive as ever, but wiser, somehow—Rin never thought he’d miss Nagisa’s admiring looks, but he does. And Rei has always been the unknown variable, but for some reason that makes him the easiest to talk to. He owes Rei just as much as the others, probably more. 

“Rin,” Haru says softly, pulling him to his feet. “Let’s go to bed.”

\--

He’s not sure how this became routine. With school, he doesn’t stay over often, but it’s been enough times that Rin knows where his toothbrush sits on Haru’s sink. He shucks his clothing and folds it, setting aside the neat bundle on Haru’s dresser. In only a tank top and boxers, he shuffles beneath the sheets until Haru sighs and pulls him closer, until Rin’s chest is pressed up against Haru’s back.

He wonders, sometimes, how this can be so easy for Haru—how he knows exactly what he wants, and never seems uncertain that he’ll get it. Rin knows, now, that maybe he’s hurt Haru more than anyone else. And yet Haru keeps pulling him closer.

“ _Rin_.” 

“What?”

“Go to sleep.” _Stop thinking, so much_.

Rin laughs, lightly, then presses his lips to the back of Haru’s neck and lets himself drift.

\--

After the relay, Haru asks him if he’s still chasing his father’s dream. And Rin knows that he can’t, anymore, that that path has never made him happy. So he tries to gather it all up—his fears that his father will disappear from the world, the fatigue that sits on his mother’s shoulders, Gou’s slightly dazed look whenever anyone talks about him—and let it go.

The light filters in through the paper door, casting shadows in all directions. Rin can’t gather them up fast enough, all the dark feelings that splinter more and more. They keep growing, and suddenly he’s drowning.

He’s drowning in them, suddenly. His mother’s strained smiles, which he’s sure are a mask for disappointment. Gou’s theatrically indignant expressions, which probably come from real anger that he doesn’t want to face. Makoto and Nagisa’s hurt looks, the first time they meet again and he doesn’t spare them a second glance. Sousuke, who still looks twelve-years-old, asking him why he never wrote back again. Ai and Mikoshiba, who only ever tried to help and got nothing but grief for their efforts. And Haru, twelve and seventeen and ageless, hurt by Rin in more ways than he can name or count. 

He’s drowning, and he’s dragging Haru down with him.

\--

Rin wakes up abruptly, gasping for breath as his chest heaves. He sits up, draws his knees to his chest and tries to bite down on the anguished noises rushing up out of his throat. It hurts, when his teeth dig into the inside of his cheek, but somehow the pain is grounding. He feels his heart hammering in his chest and tries to stop breathing in such wispy, gasping inhales. 

“Rin?” 

He turns after a long moment, his heart hitting his stomach. Haru is sitting up in bed, staring at him. It’s still dark out—there’s moonlight shining in on them from Haru’s open window. He can’t make out Haru’s expression—maybe wouldn’t be able to parse its subtleties even if he could see it properly—and suddenly, Rin doesn’t know what to do.

He can’t look at Haru and see fear or hurt or anger or disgust. When he first came back, he wanted those things—wanted them because they were _something_ , even when he tried to convince himself that he wanted to be free of Haru. But now he’s seen Haru smiling at him, and looking so gentle and tender, and he can’t, he can’t go back to how it was before. He pulls his knees closer against his chest and rests his forehead against them, unable to look up at Haru.

For long moments, there’s nothing—no movement, no sound in the room except Rin’s erratic breaths. 

Then the sheets are rustling, and Haru comes to sit directly in front of Rin. He reaches out and cups Rin’s cheeks in his hands, pulling his face up so that he can see Rin’s expression. His own is masked, pensive. Rin takes a shuddering breath and tries to look away, uncomfortable with such focused scrutiny. 

“ _Rin_.” 

He looks back, because he has to. Haru blinks at him, brow furrowing slightly. He reaches out and wipes his fingers against Rin’s cheeks, where tears have fallen involuntarily. Rin takes a shuddering breath, but Haru doesn’t let go of him. When he’s done wiping Rin’s face, he sits closer and rests his forehead against Rin’s, breathing slowly. 

Rin’s not sure how he knows what Haru’s intending, but it’s easy to regulate his breathing in time to Haru’s. In, out, in, starting fast to match Rin’s erratic gasping and slowly growing slower and calmer. Rin reaches out and digs his fingers into Haru’s t-shirt, letting the points of contact ground him. 

They sit like that for long moments. Haru is practically in Rin’s lap, and their breaths mingle together as Rin slowly feels the adrenaline and panic ebb out of him. In a way, it’s like when they swim a relay together—they’re so contrary that they shouldn’t be able to find a suitable rhythm, and yet they can. Haru pulls Rin into his elegant calm, grounding him and teaching him how to ride out the waves of his own uncertainty. 

Eventually Rin tips his head back, lets out a long sigh. Haru follows, draping himself over Rin’s chest as they lie back down in the bed. Haru hasn’t said anything other that Rin’s name since they’ve both woken up. He’s not asking any questions, or demanding that Rin explain himself. 

The moonlight still glows around them, shining off of Haru’s dark hair as Rin pulls his fingers through the thick locks. Haru makes a noise of mild content—like a cat, really—and nuzzles into Rin’s neck, languid in a way that only comes with being tired. 

Rin doesn’t know how to describe the tenderness that wells up in him at that moment. It’s a feeling that’s always been there, in different forms—admiration and jealousy and wonder, all the things that come to mind when he sees Haru swim, or smile, or pay him the slightest bit of attention. 

“I love you,” he breathes, his voice raspy and quiet. It breaks through the stillness of the night, and it’s at that moment he realizes this isn’t a dream anymore, that he and Haru are here in this moment and he’d just _said that aloud_.

He braces himself for impact, waits for Haru to push him away. But instead Haru just shifts until he’s sitting over him, again, and kisses him first on one cheek and then the other. Lastly, he kisses Rin’s forehead, before settling in again which his face in the crook of Rin’s neck. 

Rin feels it, moments later, when Haru’s breath evens out and he drifts back to sleep. But Rin stays awake for long moments, echoes of dreams and reality weighing heavily on him.

\--

He takes Gou shopping for groceries, a week later. It’s still amazing to him how much she’s grown, how adult and together and whole she seems. She picks through vegetables and he carries the bags, and he listens to her chatter and realizes all the ways that their lives now intersect. 

“So-o,” she says, rocking back and forth on her heels. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“What?” He doesn’t mean for it to sound so gruff, but somehow that’s just the way he is now—confusion turns to aggression quickly, before he even notices.

“Nagisa-kun said you went over for game night,” Gou says, as if it’s a usual thing. Rin hadn’t thought about the potential horror of a Nagisa-Gou partnership until this moment, but he realizes he should have.

“Yeah, they all sat around playing board games. It’s like they’re still in elementary school,” Rin mumbles, juggling grocery bags and trying to hide his expression.

“So you didn’t have _any_ fun?” Gou prods, looking up at him expectantly. “Nagisa-kun said you were still there when everyone else left.”

He can feel his cheeks heating up, doesn’t know how to sidestep this conversation. It’s not that he doesn’t want Gou to know, it’s just that speaking of things aloud makes them real, pulls them out of the precious space of no one knows about this but us. The more people know about something, the more fragile it becomes.

“I fell asleep,” Rin says eventually. “It’s not a big deal.”

And Gou lets the subject drop, because she’s always been good at knowing when not to push too much. Rin supposes she’ll find some other way of addressing it—the same way she pushed Iwatobi towards him when he kept pushing her away. He doesn’t know how she has so much resilience, why she keeps coming back even though he does nothing to earn it.

He walks her home and they finish putting away the groceries, and Rin looks towards the door, knowing their mother will be home soon.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Gou asks, already taking out bowls and chopping boards to prepare.

“No,” Rin says shortly, shoulders lifting reflexively. It should be simple now, shouldn’t it? Sitting down to a meal with his family. But it isn’t. 

“Oh,” Gou says, voice colored with disappointment.

“What?” Rin asks, frowning.

“Nothing.” Gou’s already preparing rice, smiling at him. 

“That wasn’t nothing,” Rin says, because unlike his sister he never knows when to stop pushing. 

“I just thought,” Gou mumbles, then lifts her head and says clearly, “I thought, after everything, you’d come home more. Spend more time with us.”

She doesn’t say, _I thought everything was better, now_ , but Rin still hears it in her voice. And he balks, because he doesn’t have a good reason for why that isn’t the case.

“I’m gonna get going,” he says, turning without looking at her, voice strange in his own ears.

“Onii-chan!” She’s coming after him, but he’s too fast. “Please, just—”

It’s always easiest to run away.

\--

They’re sitting on the beach, just the two of them, watching the waves roll in. They’d been swimming, until just a little while ago, and now they both smell like the ocean and are covered in sand as Rin rests his head in Haru’s lap and Haru brushes his fingers through Rin’s hair. 

Rin still can’t get over the proximity between them, the fact that he’s allowed to touch Haru as much as he wants. And now that he can, he always wants to be as close to Haru as possible, because it’s like a reminder. 

(He’s been thinking a lot about being even closer, opening up even more, but the idea is still mutely terrifying. He can’t voice it aloud, even though they’ve gotten each other off and Haru has looked right at him as he’s come—surely there isn’t anything more intimate than that? But there is, and he wants it, but it’s terrifying.)

He’s never really liked silence, but with Haru it’s easy to be still and quiet. He even finds himself enjoying it, though usually the last thing he wants is to be alone with his thoughts. 

“You never told me why you were upset, before,” Haru says, after long, quiet moments. 

Rin shifts uncomfortably, because it isn’t lost on him that he’d run straight from his own house to Haru’s, that seeing Haru was the only thing that made him feel calm again. “It’s nothing.”

He knows Haru is frowning, at least on the inside, when his fingers stop stroking through Rin’s hair. “You never tell me about it.”

“What, like you’re always so open with what you’re feeling?” Rin bites out, immediately regretting it. Haru goes still, and Rin takes the moment to pull away, sitting up. They aren’t touching at all, anymore. 

Haru just looks at him, eyes dark and deep. “I am,” he says, as if he’s never hidden anything. And Rin—Rin just doesn’t _get_ him, sometimes. 

“Well, it doesn’t work that way, for me! I can’t even explain it to myself, how am I going to get it to make sense to you?” He knows that he’s mad at himself, and not at Haru, but there’s nowhere else for these feelings to go, and why does everyone keep pushing him, today?

But Haru doesn’t push. He draws his knees up to his chest and stares out at the ocean, the wind blowing his hair around his face. 

“I had just started to understand,” Haru says, “with the relay.” And somehow, Rin knows he’s not talking about the last one, but the first—when they were children. 

Rin doesn’t know what to say. He’s drowning again, his throat closing up.

“Why did you leave?” Haru asks, still not looking directly at him. 

Don’t say it, Rin thinks desperately. He knows it’s his own fault, that he brought all of this on himself, but if Haru says it out loud it’ll be real. The entire world will know his failings.

“Why did you go to Australia?”

His entire body is shaking, because he can’t even explain it to himself. He knows what he’d thought—that he’d come back, a triumphant champion, having fulfilled his father’s dream and his own. But he hadn’t foreseen how hard it would be, or how much that would affect him, or how he’d be entirely unable to express that to the people around him. 

He doesn’t have an answer.

He only realizes that he’s gotten to feet when Haru is looking up at him, startled. Because Rin’s hands are clenched into fists at his sides, and he’s breathing hard, and he knows this sensation well, because he’s fighting back tears. 

Haru is—Haru is so _bright_. He shines in the darkness, has some secret source of inner strength and talent and beauty that never runs out. But when Rin tries to do anything on his own, he fails. He’s never going to be self-sufficient and effortless, like Haru. He’s always going to weigh him down.

“Fuck, I don’t _know_ ,” Rin says, voice shaking. The tension in the air is palpable, and he feels like he can’t breathe. 

“Rin—”

“Shut up! What do you know?” He’s not angry, he realizes distantly. He just wants this to finally be over, wishes the relay had washed away as much as it seemed to. He knows how happy he felt that day, and on the days he’s spent since with Haru and the rest of the team and Ai and Gou, but it’s not—it’s not the same. It isn’t fixed, not the way it should be. 

Haru’s still sitting on the ground, looking up at him with wide eyes. It’s the same way he looked when Rin beat him, when Rin said they’d never swim together again. He looks like doesn’t know what to do.

“I told you, didn’t I?” Rin demands, on some sort of twisted hysterical roll. “I—I _love_ you, but this is what it is, with me. I get it now, why you didn’t say it back. A love like this—like mine—it’s going to crush you.”

And just like that, it’s too much. The dam breaks, and Rin’s spilling out of himself, turning abruptly in the sand and running without even bothering to grab his shirt. He can hear Haru calling after him, but he just picks up speed. He finds his shoes near the road and shrugs into them, not bothering to look behind him. 

Eventually, Haru’s voice fades into the distance.

\--

He assumes he’s out of tears when he stands in his own doorway, knocking to be let in. But when the door swings open and sees his sister standing there, the only thing he can do is fall against her and cry—clinging onto the person he’s supposed to protect and care for, and selfishly taking all of her support instead. 

“It’ll be okay, Onii-chan,” Gou says, her embrace warm around him.

He wishes he could believe her, but it feels like he’s just taken all of his chances and thrown them to the bottom of the sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again for reading, thus far! Let me know what you think either here or on [tumblr](http://newamsterdame.tumblr.com). See you next week!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are cats, photographs, and realizations.

He isn’t the type to brood over his memories. Most of the ones that matter are shared, and stay alive that way. The others—quiet, private—don’t need repetition to be remembered. 

But maybe if he thought about it more he’d realize how his memories fray, that he tends to remember colors and sights the sharpest while sounds and sensations fade away too quickly. 

When he thinks of the elementary school relay, he thinks of bright lights and brilliant smiles on Makoto, Nagisa, and Rin’s faces. The applause is dulled in recollection, and so is the feeling of Rin’s arm around his shoulders when the camera flashed. 

The day Rin had lost to him in middle school is dark and shadowed—he remembers each of Rin’s expressions, how he’d smiled but his eyes had been hollow, and then, after, how he’d broken down entirely. He remembers the red of Rin’s hair and the pattern of his scarf, but can’t hold onto the poisonous way his words sounded when he said he’d never swim again. 

It’s years later, when Haru has stopped waiting for phone calls, that he realizes he doesn’t quite remember what Rin’s voice sounds like. He can picture him exactly—sharp teeth and vibrant eyes, long limbs and exaggerated expressions—but his voice fades in and out of his memories, elusive. 

He never realizes how much he longs for Rin’s voice—for something other than the flattened images of his memories—until he sees Rin again, years later. And even though Rin is gruff and dismissive and _wrong_ , Haru can’t help but be grateful for it.

He has albums full of pictures, has always been good at visuals. He can draw almost anything from memory or quiet observation. But it’s like being underwater—the sounds don’t quite filter through. It’s safer, beneath the water, because there’s only each moment flowing into the next, nothing to remember at all.

\--

For a moment, when Rin leaves him standing on the beach, hurt and confused, Haru thinks that everything will backslide. He thinks that _he_ will backslide, dive back under the water to where everything is calm and hurts less. But somehow, that doesn’t happen. For the first time in his life, he doesn’t want isolation. (It’s easier, perhaps, but it’s also more painful now that he knows what the alternative is.)

So on Monday he walks with Makoto to school, and if he speaks even less that he does normally Makoto doesn’t mention it. At lunch, they claim the rooftop with Rei, Nagisa, and Gou. She’s quieter than usual, and there are heavy bags under her eyes. But after they’ve sat together for a moment she perks up and tells them she’s planned regimens for the all in the off-season, and that next year they really will be the best. 

But when it’s time to head to class Haru hangs back, waiting for Rei and Nagisa to rush off to their classroom and motioning for Makoto to go on without him. 

He waits quietly, observing Gou gathering her things and brushing her hair behind her ears. A few months ago, he had marveled at how different she seemed from Rin, but now he’s struck by the similarities. Her emotions don’t display as destructively as Rin’s, but she vacillates the same way between happiness and anger and, occasionally, sadness. For the past few months, Rin’s default has been anger, or that deeper, bitter sadness. Gou always manages to bounce back to happiness, except today.

“Haruka-senpai!” she says, surprised when she looks up to see him waiting. “You didn’t have to stay behind!”

Haru shrugs. “I wanted to,” he says, truthfully. 

Gou grins, sincerely, tucking her notebook under one arm as they head for the staircase. “Thank you. You really are a kind person, aren’t you?”

For a moment, all he can see is Rin’s stricken face, contorted with anger. He hadn’t felt kind, then. 

He hadn’t thought he’d let anything show on his face, but Gou reaches out and takes his hand, clutching it tightly. 

“Onii-chan spent most of the weekend at home,” she confides quietly. “He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, and I think I pushed him too much, maybe. But before, he was so much happier. Because of everyone, I think, but also because he was spending so much time with you.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. He isn’t embarrassed, or ashamed. He hadn’t told the others what was going on between him and Rin because it should have been obvious. He doesn’t hide his feelings, and if anyone cares to know what they are they can pick up on how he acts and what he does say, can’t they? 

“Haruka-senpai? Did something happen, this weekend?”

Obviously, something _did_ , but that doesn’t mean Haru knows what he’d done wrong. He scowls, and then shrugs. 

“I don’t understand him,” he says, slowly. “He never tells me what’s wrong.”

Gou smiles softly, sadly, in understanding. “He’s bad at asking for help,” she says. “But, you know, he has been happy. Since the relay, and when he’s been with you.”

He has been happy, and yet they’d spent the weekend apart, and Gou looks like she hasn’t slept since then. Haru’s lips turn down in a frown, before he realizes that Gou’s still looking at him, waiting for him.

He squeezes her hand back, once, before letting go. “You’ve helped him the most,” he says. “I wouldn’t—we wouldn’t have met again, if it wasn’t for you.”

Gou shakes her head vehemently, but there’s a blush on her cheeks and a shaky smile on her face while Haru walks her back to class. 

It’s not resolved, Haru knows, as he sits in class and stares out of the window. Gou shouldn’t always have to be the one to bring them together. But at least, none of them are ever alone.

He’s still lost in these thoughts as he and Makoto walk home, Makoto chattering about their new training regimen, making comments that Haru only partially hears. 

They stop by the stone steps when Makoto’s secret admirer appears, the white cat nuzzling against his legs as Makoto laughs and kneels down to pet her head. Today, she’s brought along a friend, so Haru ends up putting down his bag and kneeling down as well, letting a second cat rub up against him without actively encouraging him. 

“It’s funny,” Makoto says, while the cat purrs in his arms, “she always comes and waits for us, but my mom says she never lets anyone else get close to her.”

Cats are a little stupid that way, Haru thinks. They clearly crave affection, but are too jumpy to take it from just anyone. People have to be vetted, judged, trusted before they get as comfortable as Shiro-chan is with Makoto. 

“It’s because she trusts you,” is what comes out of his mouth, a stray thought that he doesn’t quite intend to verbalize.

Makoto laughs, softly. “Not always. Some days, even when she waits, she still won’t let me pet her. But that’s alright. I can wait until she wants me to be here.” As if to emphasize the point, he scratches under the cat’s chin as she rumbles happily. 

“That’s not fair. You’re always the one waiting, happy to see her even when she’s in a mood.” 

Makoto shrugs. “She’s not a person, Haru. She doesn’t understand why that would be hurtful.”

“Some people don’t understand, either,” Haru grumbles, looking away. And again, he hadn’t thought to speak out loud, but that’s the problem with being close to people, isn’t it? They become easier to talk to, and then Haru starts opening up more than he intends. And with Makoto, that’s always been the case. 

“But that’s an easy fix,” Makoto says. “With people, you can tell them. And most of the time, they’ll understand.”

Makoto’s looking right at him, now, green eyes wide and sincere. And he _knows_ , Haru knows that he does. Keeping things from Makoto has never served him well, anyway.

“…some people won’t. Understand.” 

“Give them a chance, maybe?”

There’s a moment of stillness, and the cat nuzzling against Haru’s hand gets bored and decides to wander away. Haru watches him go, feeling his emotions tangle in the pit of his stomach.

“Rin and I were dating,” Haru mutters, not meeting Makoto’s eyes.

“I know,” Makoto says, and then, at a higher pitch, “Wait— _were_?”

“You know,” Haru repeats, brow furrowing.

“Haru, he fell asleep on you! After spending the whole night looking at the rest of us like he was about to explode. I mean, we all figured it had to be something like that.” Makoto laughs, softly, running a hand through his hair. “But what did you mean, ‘were’?” 

So everyone had figured it out, just as Haru had expected. So why is Rin the only one who doesn’t get it? 

“I did something to upset him,” Haru says. 

“And he broke up with you?”

“We haven’t talked about it.” He hasn’t even tried to call, because if Rin had run away from him so easily, doesn’t that mean he doesn’t want Haru to follow him?

“Maybe you should?” Makoto says, his tone somewhere between incredulous and indulgent. Makoto makes things easy, Makoto never needs Haru to explain himself. And yet, when Haru _does_ explain himself, Makoto is happier than ever. 

“Maybe.”

\--

“ _Haruka? This is your mother. How are you doing? Are you eating well? Tachibana-san told me you joined the swim team, again. Why didn’t you tell me? We would have come to your tournaments. Did you enjoy yourself_?”

His mother’s voice, over the answering machine, rests for a moment. He imagines her sighing, her shoulders lifting infinitesimally before dropping again. 

“ _We’ll be home, a few days after your summer break starts. Maybe you can tell us about it, then. I love you, Haruka_.” 

He words ring in his ears as he prepares his dinner. There’s usually nothing special about his mother’s messages, or their conversations when he picks up when she calls. But for some reason, this one echoes deep.

He replays the message three times before bed, listening to her last few words in the way she intends them, like a reminder of something he should already know.

\--

He’s never been to Rin’s house, before. When they were in elementary school, Rin stayed with his grandmother, and since their reconciliation they’ve met at Samezuka. Haru doesn’t even know how often Rin goes home, if he does at all. But Gou had said he’d been home last weekend, and so Haru decides to take a chance.

When he knocks on the door, it isn’t Rin or Gou who answers. Instead, he finds a woman just about his own height, with long reddish hair and sharp features. She looks so much like Rin that Haru is taken aback, for a moment—he had expected an elder version of Gou, and while this woman does look like her daughter, it’s clearly Rin that favors her most. 

He just stares at her, for a long moment.

“Could you be Nanase-kun?” she asks, kindly. There’s a playfulness to her tone, a teasing quality that both Rin and Gou have inherited or learned. 

“Yes,” he says, still uncertain. He’s not surprised that she knows who he is, but he can’t help but wonder quietly if she knows about _everything_. 

“Gou’s not home, yet,” she says, and before Haru can contradict her she continues, “And Rin’s gone out for a run. Even when he comes home to visit, he’s always training.” She says that with a hint of exasperation, but it’s fond. Just looking at her, Haru notices the way her eyes gleam when she talks about her children. 

He’s still trying to think of an appropriate response when she turns and says, “Would you like to come in? You can wait for Rin, until he comes back.” 

Haru nods, mumbles the formalities as he sets aside his shoes and follows Rin’s mother into the sitting room. Their house is mostly western in style, a far cry from his own. But it looks warm and lived-in, and Haru finds himself liking it right away.

“Have a seat,” Rin’s mother says. “I’ll make some tea.”

There’s a cabinet in one corner of the sitting room, in view of the kitchen. Haru stares at it while he waits, sees the gleam of trophies and medals. He wonders how many Rin has accumulated over the years, and what they each mean to him. Haru still doesn’t know that winning races really _matters_ , in the end, but he knows it means something to Rin. Does his mother keep the trophies because it means something to her, too? Or does she do it for Rin’s sake, her silent support of his dream?

There’s a coffee table in front of the couch, and on it is an envelope of newly-printed photographs, the kind that Gou brings to the swim club every time she gets a new set printed. Rin’s mother returns to find Haru glancing suspiciously at this latest envelope. 

“That’s from a few weeks ago,” she says, shifting the envelope to make room for the tray of tea. When Haru reaches out to pour and serve it, for her, she smiles at him approvingly. “Gou took a lot of pictures, that day. She was so happy.”

When the tea is served, Rin’s mother takes the photographs out of the envelope and hands them to Haru. The first one on the stack is from right after the relay—Haru looks at it and freezes, absorbing every line of his friends’ smiles, committing them all to memory so that they will never fade away. 

Rin’s mother sips her tea and gestures at the frames hung on the opposite wall, alongside the trophy cabinet. “Rin was always a fussy child,” she says, with that same exasperated fondness, “but I’d always forgive him anything when he smiled at me like that.” 

And Haru knows exactly what she means. He sets his cup down on the coffee table and walks over to the wall, sees the pictures carefully framed and displayed. Rin’s mother, holding a baby tight in her arms as he holds a thick lock of her hair in one stubby fist and gnaws on it. A man—Rin’s father—holding two babies, one older and red-faced (Rin) and one sleeping peacefully (Gou). There’s a picture of all four of them—Gou on their father’s shoulders, Rin holding his mother’s hand and pointing at something out of view of the camera. There’s an older woman, Rin’s grandmother, who appears in some photos, but most often it’s Rin and Gou, smiling and content. 

(But Haru knows what to look for, can see the crease between Rin’s brow in the pictures from middle school, the tired look on his face and the hunched agitation that he tries to hide less the older he gets. There are less pictures, as the years go on, but it’s clear that someone—Gou, their mother—has tried their best to keep the family narrative running.)

Rin’s mother has come to stand a few feet away from him, holding the photo from the relay. “Now we have another to put up,” she says.

It’s silly, and sentimental, and exactly the sort of thing he’d expect from Rin himself. And Haru understands why she does it, why she wants and needs an extended, demonstrative record of her family’s happiness, because this is a family that has lost a great deal and spent a long time chasing after fleeting dreams. 

It’s a kind of proof, like Haru’s mother’s messages, or Makoto’s quiet understanding, or Gou’s well-meaning manipulations. 

It’s the moments that lead up to when the photographs are taken that defines what happens within them. 

Haru doesn’t want the pictures he takes in his mind to be anger, shame, retreat. He wants ones like the relay photograph—happy, _together_.

Rin’s mother looks up when they both hear the front door open. 

\--

Rin walks into the sitting room pulling earbuds out of his ears, running a hand through his sweat-mussed hair. “I’m home,” he mutters, before he looks up, sees his mother and Haru standing together, and freezes. 

He looks tired, Haru thinks, and miserable. He’s closer to the agitated, defensive person he was at the beginning of the summer than the radiating, joyful one he’s been since the relay. And Haru feels no small portion of guilt, knowing he’s perhaps part of the reason. 

That’s the problem with caring about people, isn’t it? The good emotions are amplified, but so are the bad. That isn’t freeing; it’s the opposite. People are like anchors, who drag you down. Haru will be wrapped up in everyone else’s emotions, and it’s scary, because he barely knows how to process his own.

“Rin,” his mother says, “Look who came to visit. I’ll leave you alone, okay?” And before Rin or Haru says anything, she’s gone, taking the stack of photographs with her. 

“What are you doing here?” Rin says, gruff and defensive and angry. His voice sounds hoarse, like he hasn’t used it in awhile, or like he’s been crying. It’s shattered glass that hasn’t been smoothed down.

Haru thought he had made a decision before coming to the Matsuoka household, but it’s really in this moment that he comes to terms with what he wants, and what he needs to do to get that. He steps forward, reaches for both of Rin’s hands and holds fast when Rin tries to pull away.

“Rin,” he says, and Rin freezes, caught like prey about to be swooped up. Haru waits until Rin looks up, until they’re looking at each other’s eyes, because he needs to be sure that Rin will hear what he’s about to say.

“Just, stay with me,” Haru says, finally averting his gaze. “Be with me. Even if I don’t always make you happy.”

And it takes a moment, like Haru expected that it would, for Rin to fully process what he’s saying. But Haru sees with utter clarity—the middle school race, when Rin beat him at prefecturals, when he exploded after regionals, when he ran from Haru on the beach—time and again, Rin avoids telling Haru what’s wrong. And if he does that, how will Haru ever be able to help?

Rin gulps down a breath, comes close to Haru and buries his face against Haru’s neck. “You _do_ make me happy, don’t you get it? It’s the other way around.”

Haru shifts his grip, brings his palms flush together with Rin’s and entwines their fingers. “No, stupid.” Because Rin doesn’t get it, not yet. And he won’t, not until Haru tells him.

“The only time you’ve ever hurt me is when you walk away without saying anything.” 

Rin shudders, hides his face against Haru’s neck and clenches his hands so tight that Haru’s sure he’ll have imprints of Rin’s nails against his skin. But that, too, will be a reminder.

“I’m sorry,” Rin says, softly. “I missed you.”

“You don’t have to,” Haru says, and he pulls away from Rin so that he can kiss him, lightly, on the cheek. 

And Rin looks up, and Haru sees understanding flashing in his eyes for a moment, before he scrunches up his face and pushes Haru away exaggeratedly. “My mom is in the next room, stop that!”

Haru doesn’t take it personally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is almost three weeks later than it should have been, and that's because it was also originally meant to be the last chapter but now isn't. So, there's a bit more story to tell, if you're all still sticking with me.
> 
> As ever, thanks for your kind words, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you soon!
> 
> [here](http://newamsterdame.tumblr.com/post/134695083725/you-are-more-than-the-promise-of-the-sea-part-v) on tumblr.


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